More to Pride "This is Life" CD
[Rivalry]
Fuck yeah, this is pissed off old school sounding hardcore from California with just the right amount of attitude to keep things energetic and in your face.  The first thing you hear on the record is a call of, "Yeah, that's right motherfuckers!", which pretty much sets the pace.  Things are a little heavier than any youth crew type of stuff, so it's basically moderately fast and basic chord progressions with midpaced breaks and a couple of harder mosh parts.  It's nothing new, but they write good songs, the performances are tight, the recording's strong, and I'm really digging the vocals.  The vocals are just straight yells, but there's a nice bitterness going on, and that really makes a difference somehow.  "My True Friends" is among the faster and more commonplace hardcore song structures, "Can't Be Trusted" briefly employs a little bit of melody, "Leaving So Soon" is a little more consistently midpaced and even tosses in some quick gallop picking, and closer "You're Wack" (awesome title) has a darker intro and the rhythms pound away a little harder with some cool dissonant twists.  The sound quality is pretty damn good.  The mix is dead even so you can hear everything perfectly, the drums sound natural, the bass pumps away in the center, and the guitars are heavy without sounding metallic per se.  The vocals sound perfect in my opinion.  I could stand for the guitars to be touched up a little, and maybe the bass could be barely more defined, but don't touch those vocals.  The drums shouldn't really be tinkered with either.  Good stuff.  Visually things look nice, using a minimal color palette and mainly high contrast imagery (sans a few tinted band photos).  The lyrics are succinct and cover a range of topics, most of which are pretty typical as far as dealing with betrayal, anger, staying true, friendship, etc.  I still dig most of the lyrics though, simply because the shit's straightforward and pissed, which works.  That's about all there is to it, really.  It's a pretty brief EP and they make their point and move the fuck along.  This is definitely the style of traditionally influenced hardcore that I most prefer these days, so I'll be looking out for more from this band. (7/10)
Running time - 17:00 (approximately), Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: My True Friends, Can't Be Trusted, You're Wack]
Rivalry Records - http://www.rivalryrecords.com

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